Space conservation is increasingly a premium factor in equipment design. Electronic technicians as well as machinery mechanics are recurrently confronted with troubleshooting problems in dark recesses and hard to reach places. The modern trend toward space economy in mechanical and electronic design presents ever increasing problems for the technician to view hard to reach potential problem areas without unnecessarily disassembling encasements and removing components. Accordingly, the ability to avoid displacement of functional components during technical operations provides significant damage risk control to equipment as well as means toward time management during assessment.
Technicians and mechanics in many contemporary situations in order to view otherwise obstructed areas are forced to use a light source as well as a separate hand-held mirror which in combination often tend to be awkward and may even require the use of both hands. The positioning of a conventional mirror in an obstructed region to reflect an area of interest to the viewer's line of sight is a task in itself. The added task of positioning a light source such that enough of the emitted light will be transmitted to a portion of the mirror to illuminate the desired location and coincide with the viewer's line of sight is difficult indeed. Moreover, diffuse light reflected from the surrounding area of the mirror tends to yield very poor contrast against the reflected area to be viewed.
Presently available lighted mirrors are generally constructed for wide-angle viewing. U.S. Pat. No. 5,428,484, issued Jun. 27, 1995 shows a hand held telescoping mirror device which includes a light bulb situated close to the mirror to provide a broad illumination region. U.S. Pat. No. 4,907,135, issued Mar. 6, 1990 shows a pen light having a removable conventional fixed-angle mirror. U.S. Pat. No. 2,107,791, issued Feb. 8, 1938 discloses a mirror with an attachable flashlight and a conical hood to direct the light to the fixed angle mirror. Other examples of this general type are shown in: U.S. Pat. No. 2,222,879, issued Nov. 26, 1940; U.S. Pat. No. 1,750,194, issued Mar. 11, 1930; and U.S. Pat. No. 1,656,754, issued Jan. 17, 1928.
Previous attempts to construct instruments to solve the problem have employed sources which disseminate light as well as mirrors in structural arrangements which have inherently lacked the functional precision to allow a user to focus on a selected area for accurately viewing details. The need clearly exists for a precision tool to enable exploring and accurately viewing obstructed areas and dark recesses for cost-effective maintenance of modern technical and mechanical equipment.